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TUX Issue #12 Now Available

Issue number 12, April 2006, of TUX now is available. Subscribers, you can download this issue here or simply follow the Download TUX button on the right to download the current issue. If you're not yet a TUX subscriber, consider subscribing today for instant access to this issue and many more!

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If you are rating distros for newbies, then perhaps you should have actual newbies test and rate the distros. I don't really care what someone who has used linux for ten years finds easy to install and use, want to know what someone who has used linux for ten minutes finds easy to install and use.

I especially appreciated the comment by the Editor in Chief, that the ongoing problem with Linux is not the many distros, but the fact that it is still an operating system "by engineers for engineers." I am not an engineer and can't afford to start a new career just now, but I am enthusiastic about Linux. I consider myself an "intelligent user" and I help friends with Mac and PC-Windows systems, but I am still thrashing around in the Linux world. My goal is to find a distro I can use and then introduce to other people who will not want to "just compile" what they want. For example I have installed Ubuntu and cannot play MP3 because there is a gap between stated capacity and what was delivered on the CD. And no, my hope computer is not connected to the net so I don't just download advice and packages. I will keep trying Linux Distros till I find one that fits and is complete enough to understand. Thanks. Ted P.

>> I am not an engineer and can't afford to start a new career just now, but I am enthusiastic about Linux. <<

First, I read the first part of that sentence as a slight hyperbole. Nothing wrong with that, I do it all the time. But since this is the part of your post I'm concerned with, I have to set it straight. What you mean is something like "I don't know how computers work, and I don't have ANY time to learn."
Is that fair?

Now, given that, why your enthusiasm for Linux? I am guessing, for want of plausible alternatives, that it is the free software culture of which it's a part. But I have "bad" news for you: free software will never be as easy to use as proprietary PC software. It will always require SOME slight effort and understanding on the part of users. It just comes with the territory.

Consider the analogy with organically grown food. I don't think it will ever be available the way processed food is now, in beautiful packages in the supermarket next block. It's just impossible to deliver it that way without ruining it or at least compromising its quality. To get it one has to invest some effort, either finding a smaller, perhaps more remote vendor, or, increasignly, I think, growing your own.

For patent reasons, not many distros do include the codecs necessary for multimedia like MP3s, Quicktime and Windows media, but there are some. If you want an easy distro that already includes these codecs, try MEPIS or PC Linux OS.

http://www.mepis.org/
http://pclinuxos.com/

People who want to use Ubuntu often start with MEPIS because MEPIS has switched to using Ubuntu packages.

SUSE comes with the ability to play MP3s out-of-the-box but not the ability to rip them from CDs. Quickime and WM have to be added afterward but it's not as difficult as it might seem.

I'm enough of a Linux user to be able to get into real trouble when I press the wrong buttons. I started with Mandrake 9.0, floundered with FC3, Back to Mandriva and finally to Suse 9.3 Professional. I messed them all up pretty well enough so that the first three required a re-install. I'm kind of jammed up with Suse 9.3 Pro right now since I don't have any CD Rom sound and for some reason I'm unable to download XMMS which I understand should always work in these cases. I had been considering SUSE 10.0 but the article slowed me up some. I see that multimedia is not SUSE's finest offering. Having said that I also see that there are easy workarounds to the issue, whether adding an outside patch or possibly spending $50 bucks and buying the discs with the DVD stuff already there.

My rant is with the apples to pears to oranges comparisons made by the testers. Since this kind of evaluation is so subjective it would have been much more valuable to have 3 or four people work with all of the distros, putting each package through the same paces. This would have given a lot more credibility to the tests.

What I could have benefitted from?
Issues installing on a dual boot system-
Removing an installed os, either MS or Linux and making sure the Grub still worked on either a stand-alone or a dual boot.
Actually finding needed support- What you had to do- Which distro excells? This category should have been one of the major criteria.
What issues would really jamb up a novice like me that knows enough to be dangerous but surely not a Linux guru.

I really like Tux magazine and read each issue, great magazine, keep up the good work. I like the recent smackdown issue but was a bit surprised that Linspire did not get a better review. Linspire recognized everything on my home made PC and I love the CNR (click-n-run) warehouse. I would like to have seen Xandros in the ring just to see how it compared.

I like Mango Parfait and enjoy the humor she puts in her Q&A tidbits. I have used Linux for 4 years but find that she has some very good tricks and tips and I think some are taking her tongue-in-cheek humor too seriously.

I use KDE but sympathize with the Gnome users. Perhaps there could be a section for Gnome addicts with articles submitted by a Gnome user group who can speak for the oppressed masses of Gnome users.

I was rather disappointed by Kevin Shockey's comparison of installing Firefox on Windows and on Linux.

Just as on Linux, it is quite possible to install Firefox from sources on Windows, though it probably is more difficult on Windows. That is the correct comparison to make if you want to compare with the Linux installation that was described in the article.

However, if you wish to compare with the automatic installation on Windows, then you should be describing, for example, "apt-get install firefox" on Debian, or "urpmi firefox" on Madriva, or running the synaptic GUI application in Ubuntu, selecting the Firefox package and selecting Install. This is at least as simple as the Windows installation, plus you can install drectly from the internet rather than downloading a file and then finding where you saved it (if you can remember) and running it from there.

Thanks very much for bringing out such a wonderful magazine. I have been a regular reader and have read all the issues. I like your approach. You have been playing a great role in improving Linux adoption on the desktop. Keep up the good work.

All the very best.
K Venkatesh
Guest Faculty, Marketing of Information Technology
Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
India

Why was PCLinuxOS not included in the "smackdown"? For a magazine aimed at new linux users there seemed an awful lot of complicated distros reviewed (less more of a lightweight overview). If I was a new linux user I wouldn't touch Debian with a barge pole. I will no doubt continue to read TUX but please change the Q and A section (get rid of Mango!) and perhaps consider more in depth tutorials for easy-to-use distros starting from the very beginning. We want to get more people interested in linux not drive them away with distros that can't do simple tasks without having to go to the command line.

The selection of distro's reviewed was probably decided by what everyone had. This set of reviews suffered from what many Linux reviews suffered from. No where were a set of criteria established. Also the reviews were by different people on different machines. No scientific basis for the rateings which were all opinion.

What is needed is a single mid to high end machine with a drive rack that allows each Distro being reviewed to be installed exclusively on it's own drive and reviewed by a single reviewer. Benchmarks may then be tested against and subjective features explained in greater detail. Perhaps use a standard like the latest Fedora to measure against.

Since playing with Linux has become my defacto hobby (and I'm still wondering why), I've decided to build a unit specifically for that task. I'm thinking that an AMD 64 Dual Core, 2 gig Ram, NVIDIA and one of the better MSI mainboards should do the job. I've installed a drive rack in the case so I can stick each distro on it's own drive and install the drive before boot. Until now I've been putting the latest and greatest on whatever low end unit that I'm currently not useing and if I liked what I was evaluating on it, got promoted to better machinery.

Like all tools, each Linux distro is best at what it was designed for. That should be considered in a review. I have Red Hat, SUSE, Fedora, Xandro's, Ubuntu and Linspire at home. I have no doubt that SUSE and Red Hat don't make superior server distro's, yet that isn't what I run at home. Nice distro's however. The one on my "production" machine is Linspire, a decision driven by my 5 year old grandson. CNR is an absolutely awesome and terribly usefull feature that allows me to provide for a boatload of great kid's stuff for Alex, the ultimate linux user.

The focus of the distro has to be stated up front and the criteria must reflect it's actual purpose. To simply state that Distro Yellow Hat is better than Winspire is meaningless otherwise.

I found it interesting that you chose an independant reviewer for each distro. This should be labeled as a "Distribution Preference" rather than a "Distribution Comparison." At anyrate, it was something new that I have never seen done before.

Someone mentioned Gentoo... You must be joking right?? My understanding was that this review was to ascertain the best distro for a ***NEW*** Linux user to get started. If that's the case... no noobie should be subjected to the horrors of a gentoo install - might as well give them an LSF guide and say "See you in a month!"

I understand the rant from the Debian Purists, "how can you give Ubuntu a higher rating than Debian?" Easy - Ubuntu releases in a 6 month schedule a stable distro that gives you the apps, desktop, utilities, look & feel that you're looking for on a desktop - Debian dosn't, period. Mark Shuttleworth and team have put together a really attractive *package* - Debian hasn't. Proof is available in the form of the success Ubuntu has had, I don't think in 10 years I've ever seen a Linux distro sustain the type of popularity that Ubuntu has thus far. I've used both, personally I don't care for Ubuntu - but I loath debian unless it's for a server.

Which brings me to the final word in Linux Distro ShowDowns... It's always the same folks - The Best Linux Distro for you is - The one you like best!

Keith.

(Oh and ps. to the Twit having a heart attack over Mango's gnome/kde comment - it's a joke, back away from you're cubicle for a few minutes and get some air.)

I think it was a real comparison, otherwise all these reviewers would not have agreed on the rating given to the other distribution.
And it was a much better comparison that those you usually see, with only 1 or 2 reviewers, this one involved many, so it should be superior.

Mandriva is not perfect and is no receiving much attention because it is not a big company (relatively to Red Hat or Suse) and because their management made quite some irritating mistakes. But indeed, all in all, in remains clearly the best version for the home user who does not want to fiddle too much, have a lot of software, stability the largest hardware support (still a crucial problem for linux users who want things to work simply).

I, personally, like the idea that they focus more on KDE than Gnome. I prefer KDE over Gnome. Most of the big distros default with Gnome, so finding KDE centric things can be difficult when everyone assumes you are running Gnome on, say, FC5 and balk at the idea of helping someone using KDE.

I laughed, and I use both gnome and kde. I also use FVWM, and Fluxbox sometimes... Is this magazine KDE Centric? Absolutely - It's geared towards new users making a transition to Linux from... Windows. KDE most resembles Windows, so it makes sense that this publication would center itself largely around KDE, and not Gnome.

There are lots of publications that will center themselves around Gnome, why don't you give those a read if you don't like this one? Linux is all about choice - multiple desktops, distros, apps and publications. Personally as a user of both desktop offerings, I really could care less as long as more folks come over to open source and leave windows behind.

The sad part is, more often than not, they are confronted by all the "linux in-fighting" about who's distro is best, which desktop is best, and who has been around longest... What a turn off.

Read "her" answer once more. Personally I prefer to consider myself too smart for KDE rather than too dumb for it ;-)

There's been loads of discussion on the GNOME teams attitude of less-is-more when it comes to configurability. My experience is that what they've done is remove configurability from the UI, thereby simplifying it considerably for newbies. All the configurability I want is still in there, it's just under the hood in many cases (gconf-editor is your friend).

Getting rid of Nicholas Petreley improved the quality of Tux a little bit, but until they get rid of Mango as well, I've decided to stick with publications that include content written by people that are mature and informed. Why read a magazine with abrasive language that antagonizes readers when there are plenty of other places to get good information about Linux?

Both desktop environments have their merits, but as a software developer that values productivity, GNOME is definitely a better choice for me. Lack of usable C# bindings for QT/KDE provides more than enough reason for me to stick with GNOME. By using GNOME and it's associated software development technologies, I can build new applications and utilities in less time than it would take me to do so with KDE, and the resulting code is far easier to maintain. The GNOME desktop environment leverages standards-based emerging technologies like Cairo that are also starting to be used in ubiquitous Linux applications like OpenOffice and Firefox. GNOME development skills are more broadly applicable, and GNOME technologies are supported by a wider variety of programming languages. By comparison, most KDE development technologies trap the developer in C++ and are only used in KDE applications.

I realize that KDE may be a better choice for many new users that don't have a need for C# or Cairo, but for me, it would be stupid to use KDE. Tux is a magazine for new Linux users, so a KDE emphasis may be appropriate, but that doesn't mean that KDE is universally better for everybody. Mango needs to grow up and acknowledge that not everybody has the same requirements that she does.

It would have been nice to have a summary table included where you could see how each of the distributions compared on one page across all categories, without flipping back and forth. It could have been a nice way to tie all the reviews together and present the reader with a simple summary for comparison.

It also seems that each of your distribution reviews were done entirely independently without any cross checking and standardization for the ratings across the individual reviews, allowing perhaps a little too much bias to enter into the scores. Do you really expect us to believe there is no advantage or disadvantage between any the distributions in the price category? They can't possibly all have scored a 5 if there had been a common review of the individual tests while compiling the results.

I really like the idea of doing a comparison and ranking the distributions on common criteria with common ratings, but I think we ended up with a compilation of independent reviews, without any true comparitive analysis.

"I really like the idea of doing a comparison and ranking the distributions on common criteria with common ratings, but I think we ended up with a compilation of independent reviews, without any true comparitive analysis."

There were common criteria, like ease of installation and multimedia. Jes Hal explained it. But the range Tux used to grade a particular distro is sketchy.

As much as I enjoyed reading this issue, and the "reviews" for the selected distributions (how were they chosen by the way?), I would have to partly agree with the quotation above.

Still, Tux people, nicely conceptualized issue; I like the way you people worked around the fact that what you have really are independent reviews, with a lot of subjectivity unrestrained. They read nicely, though.

Still, the comparison is wanting. Also, how come Vector Linux and Xandros were not included? Is Xandros too "easy" that you forgot about it? Do we discriminate against old pcs that those who run on them well, like Vector and Puppy Linux, are excluded?

For those looking for a *free*, enterprise-level (rock solid) GNU/Linux distribution, you may check Scientific Linux (http://www.scientificlinux.org). It is derived from the source code of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and is used in mission critical applications and environments worldwide. And is available for free, with very up to date security updates.

I was quite happy when I was read this big title on the new Tux mag...
But after I had read some lines, I said to me : is there any real linux distribution comparison???
It's a shame to describe Ubuntu with a better score then Debian! Ubuntu is based on the Debian system and use its Synaptic Package manager! Where come from your testers please??
And maybe you have forget to put the Gentoo Distrib (very smart) within your poor smackdown???

I wonder why Synaptic package manager was mentioned with every Debian based distribution, except Debian. Lower score for Debian for application installation and maintanance than for other Debian based distributions is nothing but a joke...
And the worse overall rating for Debian and the best for Mandriva... ROFL

I've just reread the Linspire review and I find it interesting that some of the very things the reviewer had trouble with are the very things that worked best on every Linspire install that I've done. I grant you, that being a Windows Network Administrator probably pushes me into the geek catagory, but I'm a lightweight Linux guy.

Specifically, getting to all of my printers and joining my home workgroup were trivial. Indeed, I had more problem with a Windows install that I did a month ago. Linspire just seemed to reach out and touch everything on my network. Because my big drive is in the Linspire unit setting up a Samba share did cause me about 15 minutes of exploration and discovery time while I figured out what I was doing. The hardest thing was setting permissions correctly to allow for guest access. This is not trivial and is how Linux/Unix works, so it will be similar for all Linux distro's.

Multimedia was the other great feature that the reviewer couldn't get to work. In my world, sound is everything! On each of my 4 installs (a laptop, and my desktops) in every case the sound card installed AND WORKED perfectly. K-Player didn't do everything, but M-Player which I got from CNR does much better. Also the CNR warehouse provided solutions to just about every need, including ripping CD's and DVD's. It cost me $10 to get the commercial DVD player, which could have been worse. The fact that a real REAL Player was included was very helpful. Multimedia for me is an absolute requirement, and if a distro doesn't do it - it goes on the shelf and thats the end of it. Linspire did not disappoint me.

Except for my DELL laptop, all of my other machines are Mike's. They have a mix of mainboards and processors rangeing from Semprons, PIII's, my sons AMD 64 Dual Core, and my wifes Celeron. Over the years I've been careful to look for a mention of Linux on the box of any hardware that I buy. 256 was the minimum memory that I ever tried to use (and 2 gig is the new family standard). Memory is good.

So, with the correct hardware - and hardware is cheap these days - Linspire does networking, multimedia, and installation better and easier than any of the other distro's that I've used. I'm surprised that the reviewer had problems.

As an special note, the last install I did was my son's mega machine. He's a college student in an Information Systems Security program, so this unit was built with power in mind (he's also a power gamer). I stuck the Linspire CD in and went throught the short sequence of configuration questions, watched it reboot for the install and expected to spend the next hour formatting and installing on the 250 gig HD. What seemed to be no more than 5 minutes later I was at a log-in prompt. I was stunned and angry because I knew that it could not have partitioned, formatted and installed that quickly. I was wrong. When I hit enter it started the tutorial. A bit of inspection revealed that it had indeed fully and properly installed. All I could do was sit in stunned amazement, a tear in my eye. It found everything! No part did not work.

Chapter 2 of that same story. Several weeks later we get Windows Media Center Edition. As this was to be a game machine the plan was to provide a replacement drive (we include a drive rack for that purpose on all newer family units) with Windows. After a few misstarts and the CD Drive having some problems reading the MS CD it takes me about 2 hours to get an OS on the unit. Then we spend another 3 hours getting the special drivers and updates on the machine. This includes getting the computer on the internet to register the system. 5 hours to get to where I was in 5 minutes with Linspire. I admit that there was some time lost to yelling, frustration and downloading drivers off the internet on Daves second machine to complete the install (a Linspire machine actually). I'm an experienced MCSE, what would a real person have done?

The only note is that I've since added a second video card and SLI mode that Linspire doesn't seem to handle, so I can't go back. I hope that they rectify this in the next release of the software. SLI mode and SATA are the necessary additions to 5.0.

I have to agree, Linspire installed like a dream. I loaded it as a dual-boot in a friend's machine (Originally built on Windows me), he really likes it, but he is a gamer and is pretty hard up to find games that run on linux (he can't afford the $50 for CNR) If he can find a way to run his windows-based games on linux, he would happily abandon MS forever. I, myself have tried Mandriva 2006. Mandriva drew high praise for multi-media support, however, I don't see it. I found the multi-media haphazard and clunky and the distro couldn't even shut down the computer. All these things could possibly be remedied easily enough by a linux guru, but I thought the point was to rate distros good for newbies. Don't get me wrong, I liked the look of Mandriva and was able to customize how it looked rather easily and it ran on a Compaq Presario 5000 with 128MB of ram that wouldn't even run XP, but I couldn't get it to install anything without working extensively with the command line. And since I can't find anyone who'll explain the command line in simple terms, that was the end of it.( All of the forums that I tried just gave me answers in jargon and with commands that just left me wondering what the hell they were talking about. Now I'm no dummy, but if I ask a question in english and get an answer in greek, then I'm really not being helped.) I've got a book that is an intro to linux with simple explanations and examples, but works with Fedora Core, so I'm going to try that next.

Why did all reviewers rate multimedia performance strictly in regards to whether or not a media player worked or not? True, media players should work out of the box, for all media formats that may need to be played, even those from the swell folks at Microsoft. Unfortunatly, all Linux distros need to do a better job in doing this, without having to add codecs later. Multimedia is a catagory that should have included the ability to create multimedia as well. Specifically, movie creation, audio mixing and dvd authoring. Admittedly, Suse should include the likes of at least one in the box video editing software (not the bogus Main Actor demo that is) and one dvd authoring tool. However, since Suse has YaST, installing these creation tools from online downloads is easy and best of all, they work. I use Suse 10.0 (free-open version) and I run Cinellera, Kino, DVDStyler,Varsha, Mix 2005, Xmovie, MPlayer, Amarok, Real Player and Freevo all on the same 250 GB hard drive that's a duel boot with Winodws XP on the other side. Suse gets at least a 4 for multimedia from me, everything else on Suse gets a 5. I've tried 5 other distros in the past 3 years, Suse is head and shoulders better than the others I have tried.

i thought the latest suse was horrible and they were quite kind. i hadn't tried it since 7.3, and that was a multimedia orgy. the latest didn't have anything that i wanted, things like audacity, etc. and it runs so damn slowly with so much unnecessary bulk.

I still did not read the Smackdown yet, but I will.
I come here by Mandriva Club News and I'm quite happy with that new everyday victory.
I'm not a new user and I'm not stupidy. I'm an Server Admin. I use Mandriva now and will probaly use it until it or me die.
I know how to do everything by hand, using vi (the one). But why I will call a console, vi an file edit it when I can click here and there and Ok?
I know, i know. Think me as a geek that is above the ordinary users is cool. Call all of then (quiet in my mind) of sub-humans or brainless is sometimes cool for every geeks ego. But I prefer, most of the time, to think that I'm a guy that like to share that wonderfull world of Freedom with all the peoples that want this. Not only geeks.
My servers, my client servers, my home pc, etc, have Mandriva Linux inside, because I like to share that piece of haven with my friends.
Or we can throll all that socialism thing trhought the WINDOWs and force every new users to use Debian or Slackware and see they running back to Uncle Bill saying that Linux is a bad penguin that bites who don't know bash. That bash is a trash... and it is a complicate dos prompt.
Yes, we can do everything we want. Or we can do better and let everyone know freedom and when they feel that are ready... be free.

Remember, a very young mind or a very old mind can not understand what is matrix. But all form of life knows what is freedom when it feels it.